When You Say Nothing At All
by LoveChilde
Summary: LoganWeevil sorta slashy, no romance. Spoilers up to and including Russkie Business. Language, sexual situations, teenaged fumblings. The things that happen when two boys don't talk.


A/N: First of all, this is slash. You have been warned.

Now that we've got that out of the way…They all belong to UPN and Rob Thomas, who's a very smart man, and a nice one too. Partial credit to Couch Baron over at TWoP for pointing out the dynamic between Logan and Weevil, and to the forum posters for about half the nicknames in here.

This is probably going to be reworked sometime soon, so constructive criticism is welcome.

"I'm not gay." He glared at his opponent.

"Neither am I." The other boy grinned at him, no remorse at all showing, and it struck him suddenly how much older he was. A year made a lot of difference at their age, and he knew Weevil could've graduated last year if he'd bothered to get enough credits for it. Not that Logan kept tabs on him.

"Then what the fuck are we doing here?"

What, indeed.

'Here', in the beginning, had been the boys' showers. And for fairly obvious reasons, they were both mostly undressed. PhysEd was just over, and he hadn't managed to skip it this time. He was still smarting from his father's reaction to his drunkenness when Trina dumped him at home, never mind a bit hung over from the drinking he'd done all weekend long, trying to make the pain go away. He wasn't popping pills yet, and wasn't about to start, but he'd had a miserable weekend. So he stayed behind after class, talking to the coach, until he was sure the showers would be empty. He really thought he was alone, but there he was, coming out of the shower and nearly walking into Weevil. Weevil- with only a small towel covering the only jewels his family would ever own, leering at him. He ignored him for a moment, but froze in place. "Stop staring at me!"

"I ain't starin'." He answered, in the maddening drawl. "Just lookin'. That not allowed now?"

"No." He crossed his arms defensively, feeling heat rising in his face. Had to keep his back to the wall. Couldn't let him see. "Get out, Weevil." Acidic, angry, I'm just as powerful as you are even if I'm only wearing a towel too. Right.

"I need to pay to look at you now? Thought that was just your sister." He didn't move, the bastard. In fact, he took another step forward. Logan help his ground, refusing to back away. Besides, his back was nearly up against the wall already. He scowled, feeling a brief flash of anger flare, then disappear.

"That too. Goes for the entire family, homeboy." Yeah. His bitch of a sister, his dad, his mom. Shit. Shouldn't have touched that. Block it off, remember the numbness. No emotions. The only way he got through school.

Something must've showed in his face because Weevil backed off, just half a step. "You don't get to call me that, Echolls." Funny, how he could make his name sound like the filthiest word in the language. "Am I…bothering you?"

"A half naked guy staring at me? Yeah, it bothers me. I'm just making sure you know where we stand." On different sides of the track, opposite sides of town, half a world apart. And never the twain shall meet, he thought bitterly. "Why are you here?"

"Had PhysEd." Weevil shrugged, and Logan mentally kicked himself. Ask a stupid question, get a stupid answer. Fine. "Wanted a shower. Looks like we had the same idea." Why did he have to look so damn confident? Trash. Logan matched him stance for stand, lowering his arms to his sides. The tattoo on Weevil's shoulder stands out like a bloodstain. "Go on, or we'll both be late."

"You go on." That sounded childish even to him, and Weevil's grin widened. "Warm up the water for me." Best recovery he could manage, under the circumstances, and it was too lame for words. Damnit.

"Oh, so you can stare at me? Logan, I didn't know you cared." Weevil had as good a smirk as any 09er. "I mean, I know you wanna, but won't Duncan dearest get jealous?" Logan decided not to dignify that with a response, and that he didn't care what Weevil thought, anyway, but his next comment hit home hard. "Fine, I'll be the bigger man. At least you'll see what she liked so much." There was no need to specify which girl. Logan launched himself at Weevil before the other boy had his towel completely off, sending them both crashing to the floor. He was hung over, in pain, and angrier than he could ever remember being.

"Don't- ever- mention her name!" He snarled, trying with all his energy to shut Weevil up, however he could. Silent, furious blows rained down on the Latino's head-

And gloriously failed to connect.

Logan was no weakling- no child of Aaron Echolls could be, and this wasn't the first punch he'd thrown by a longshot, but Weevil had a lifetime of being in a gang, leading a gang and fighting for the gang. He was stronger and faster and knew more dirty moves. Within seconds, Logan found himself pinned down, his face stinging, with Weevil straddling his middle and his back pressed painfully into the floor. They glared at each other, panting.

"If anybody comes in now, or I yell, you're going down." Logan said, swallowing fear and trying to squirm away.

"Yeah." Weevil agrees coldly. "And neither of us will ever hear the end of it. Won't do my rep anything, but what will it do to you, hm? You're the talk of the town already, want some more limelight for yourself? Didn't put enough of yourself on display at the party? Heard some of the girls say you had mag-ni-fi-cent legs." He stretched the word out.

Logan's head was spinning, but not in a way he was used to. This wasn't knock-up-the-head seeing stars, or the usual drunk dizziness. It was, he realized after a moment, confusion, disorientation, fear, and the unusual feeling of bare male body parts touching his equally bare skin. Panic started to nibble at his cool façade. "Get off me!"

"Make me." Weevil's voice was steel.

Logan struggled, silently, his eyes blazing fury and his face bright red, but every move just got more of him into contact with hot, slightly moist skin. "Get off me, you sick fuck!" Was that how it'd end? Forced into something his mind refused to acknowledge on the floor of the shower, with everyone and his brother able to just wonder in? Logan wanted to die.

Then suddenly the weight was off him, and he pushed himself up to sit, curling into a well practiced defensive ball, resting his head on his knees and waiting for the next shoe to drop. He didn't know where Weevil was, and didn't care. Then he heard a metallic click behind him, and flinched, turning a little. He found brown eyes glaring at him, but not really angry. Weevil gestured to the door, now closed and locked.

"Now we can talk."

"We got nothing to talk about." Sullen, not looking at him. He still really wanted to die. Dimly, he realized his back was turned to Weevil, and his breath stopped for a second. That was it, then. Over. Fuck.

"I think maybe we do." Weevil didn't comment on what he saw, but his lips pursed in thought. He knew what it is- had seen it a few times before, but never on an 09er. Never on him, although there'd been signs. He'd suspected, but always told himself it couldn't be. Turns out that it could. In fact, it made a strange sort of sense. He didn't really care that he was naked, although he should probably have been embarrassed as hell. He would be later. "Got a few things I need to square with you." He moved to face Logan, joining him on the floor. "About Li-"

"Don't say it." Logan's head shot up, and one hand rose in a 'stop' motion. "I don't want to hear her name, not from you." Not right then. That was the last thing he needed. "I don't want to know."

"Fine. You don't wanna know." Weevil shrugged. "I don't care what you want, jackass. You wanna leave before I say my piece, go ahead and try. I wanna see you go for it."

There was no fight left in him. Not after the weekend. Not after the two weeks that came before it. He didn't care anymore. Things couldn't get much worse. With a shrug, he rested his head on his knees again and closed his eyes. Weevil, apparently, took that as an invitation to continue.

"Ok. I'll make it short, 'kay?" He didn't want to hurt Logan, not really. He just wanted him to know. So he could stop wondering about that, at least. They had an amazing way of pissing each other off, fast and really well, but they also made a pretty good team, as long as his guys didn't know about it. "Me and Li- me and her, we were together all of six weeks. Summer, maybe two years ago, you two were broken up and you were on some stupid cruise with your parents. And…she was bored. And special. Very, very special."

A short bark of bitter laughter answered. "You can say that again." Logan didn't know what to think. He told himself again he didn't care.

"She was special." Weevil's voice hardened again. "I wasn't pissed when she dumped me, or broken hearted or any such shit. But she's the sort of girl you remember for a long time. I never hoped she'd get back to me, not seein' you together. She loved you. And you loved her."

"You don't know what you're talking about." He couldn't not care. He tried, so damn hard, not to let it get to him. But he couldn't, because it was Lilly, and it was Weevil, and it was the two of them in the same breath, in the same thought, and it hurt. Oh, not as much as it would've hurt even two weeks before- he had almost no emotional resources left- but enough to force him to care. So he spoke, knowing that's what Weevil was looking for. "You have no fucking idea, _Eli_." Stretching out the name, he allowed his anger to show again. What was he so angry about? He'd hooked up with an Italian girl that summer, and a few odd times afterwards, he'd cheated on Lilly, and knew she'd done the same. They'd never been really exclusive, when they weren't officially 'together'. When it was good, it was the best relationship he'd ever been in (one of two, he admitted to himself, but still), but when it was bad, there was no emotionality on either of their sides, because there had always been the certainty they'd get back together. He loved her. And the thought of her with that lowlife, Hispanic slime was revolting. The thought he'd touched her after Weevil had made him slightly sick. He wasn't entirely sure why, either.

"Don't I?" Weevil stood up, unselfconscious, and moved forward, stand almost over Logan. "You really think I don't know what it's like? Your girl dying, your family falling apart?" There was a certain tone to his voice that made Logan look up. Which turned out to be a terrible idea, since it put him pretty much with his nose against certain jewels he'd been contemplating earlier. He pulled his head back sharply, sucking in a shuddering breath, and spat out a single word.

"No." He didn't know. He couldn't know.

Weevil chuckled. A bitter, deeper echo of Logan's own sarcastic laugh, and crouched down again, forcing Logan's head up with one hand and supporting himself on the ground with the other. Logan tried to look away, but couldn't move his head. "I loved Lilly. She's dead. My parents died in a car crash when I was twelve. I've been living with my grandma ever since. _I know what it's like._"

"Fuck you." Logan pulled back again, landing awkwardly on his butt with his legs spread in front of him. He tucked his legs back up under his chin, now a good few feet away. "You don't know." Sure, the revelations shocked him a little, but why would he need to know or care? He was tired of not telling, tired of hiding things. And he didn't care if Eli Navarro knew- who'd believe him, anyway? "You don't know what it's like, when the girl you love more than anything in the world dies and you don't even have someone to hate for it." He said, his voice huskier than he intended it to be. "You don't know how it feels when your best friend gets more and more distant, more and more like someone you've never met, every single damn day. You don't know what it's like to know y-your mother-" He was fighting tears now, going on in short, stuttering bursts, "h-hated life enough to leave it and didn't l-love you enough to stay with you or ta-take you with her. Or to stay with someone you hate, and know he's everything you have left."

"You're right. I don't know that." Weevil's voice was pretty quiet, and Logan's hitching breath echoed around it, bouncing off the tiles. "But I know what it's like to feel completely alone in the world, and what it's like not to be able to show it 'cause then I'll lose what I have left. I had my _abuelita_ to help me out of it, a bit. You don't have that, do you?"

Logan didn't react. He didn't even know his grandparents. He'd never cared to. He'd never needed to. There were a lot of new things he had to learn to do now. The silence stretched until he couldn't bear it anymore, until he could speak again without humiliating himself. "So what? You're here to gloat? Enjoy it while it lasts, fuckface, it won't be long."

"Not gloating." Weevil shrugged. "Figured, maybe, you'd like someone to talk to you who understood, sort of, what it's like."

"You?" Logan snorted in disbelief. "That's what all this is about? You wanna play councilor?" God, that was so…ridiculous. But he'd already confessed it all, hadn't he? And there was no going back. "I don't need your help." Your pity. Your sympathy. He never wanted to need anybody ever again. There was no one to trust.

"You need someone's help. And I'm the best choice."

"Really? Why?"

"Because," Weevil explained patiently, "Neither one of us can ever tell anyone we talk to each other. There's no point in me doing it- no one would believe me or listen to me except my people, and they don't give a shit about snot-nosed highschool punks. And I know you won't tell, because whatever it might get you, you'll lose a lot more if people knew, and if I talked you can bring me down. So we're both safe, see? No face lost, no risk. Just…free talk."

Nothing in life was free. Logan had learned that before he'd turned five. If you wanted something, you needed to do something for it. If you took without giving something, you'd pay. "Nothing's free." He vocalized his thoughts. "Especially not talk."

"This talk is." Weevil looked at him again, the sort of look he'd seen on his own face a few times, but never…to another guy. "I need someone to talk to as much as you do. Besides, you know you want to."

"Want to what?" He drew back again, knowing he was blushing, and Weevil smirked again.

"Talk, trustfund. Why, did you have other ideas?"

"No!" Immediate, and very defensive. Because he was having ideas, and none of them made any sense. He'd stopped caring, or even noticing, how very naked they both still were, and how cold the floor was under him.

"Ok. So can we talk?"

He'd never leave him alone, would he? Fuck. "Fine." Logan surrendered gracelessly, like a little boy. "We'll talk."

"Are you pouting, Echolls?" Weevil looked like he was about to laugh, and Logan scowled.

"No, and shut up." He looked around them. "We can't talk here. Place is gonna be full of people in five minutes." And he'd missed fourth period English, too.

"Fine. Where, then?" They looked at each other for a long while. No public place was safe, there were eyes everywhere, eyebrows to rise and questions and comments to be made. "I know where you live." He suggested.

"I'm not going back there." Logan knew that much. Not after last night, hell no. He couldn't, and even if he could, he didn't want to. Not if they paid him. Weevil shrugged again.

"Fine. You know where I live. I'll pass the word with people I trust, make sure you'll get there safe."

It was Logan's turn to snort. "You're making such a fucking big deal out of it, homeboy. It's the Hispanic neighborhood, not downtown Baghdad. I can find it fine, and no one will dare mess with me."

"Not if I tell 'em to leave you alone, they won't." Weevil agreed. He pushing himself up and grabbed his towel again. "Four o'clock, trustfund. Don't be late."

"Don't order me about, homeboy." But there was no malice there anymore. Logan just didn't have the energy for it anymore. The shower didn't help, and the funny looks he got for skipping class didn't really improve his mood either.

But there he was, 4:05 pm, in Weevil's surprisingly not-hovel-like room, in an otherwise empty house, and Weevil had just _touched_ him. And that was here.

"I'm not gay."

"Neither am I."

"Then what the fuck are we doing here?"

"Talking." Weevil said, like there was nothing at all wrong with talking while their hands brushed together.

"We can talk without touching." Logan replied through clenched teeth.

"Why, that bother you?" Again. Damn it.

"Yes! No. Yes, it bothers me, and no, I don't want to."

"You're not making any sense, trustfund."

"Yes, it bothers me that you're…touching me." Logan said, as slowly as he could. "And no, I don't really want to talk, okay? I just…" He stood up. "I wanna get out of here."

"Where are you gonna go? Home?"

"No!" He had to expand his vocabulary sometime soon. 'No' was starting to get tired.

"Why not?" Calm, so calm, Logan was starting to hate him for it.

"Because I can't!"

"Can't go home again?" Weevil mocked. "How Hallmark. So what d'you wanna do?"

"I don't know. I don't care."

"If you don't care…why did you sneak through back yards on the way here?"

Logan flushed bright red again. "I have a reputation to keep." He growled. "Someone could've seen."

"Oh?" Finally, anger in his voice. Thank God. Maybe now they could go back to hitting each other, which wasn't nearly as confusing as anything else. "You ashamed of yourself? Of visiting us lowly serf-types?"

"Didn't know you surfed."

Weevil gave him a look of deep disgust. "Where you gonna sleep tonight, trustfund?"

_Nowhere near your bed, that's for fucking sure._ "Duncan's." He shrugged.

"Yeah? He know about that yet?"

Wordlessly, Logan nodded. Weevil actually looked surprised. "That so? Then why ain'tcha there now?"

He sighed. He'd have to admit it, wouldn't he? It wasn't fair. "Because maybe I do want to talk." He said grudgingly. "And I can't talk to him. He doesn't get it." Lilly's eyes, but none of her understanding. Lilly understood. And Lilly liked Weevil enough to screw him. Maybe, just maybe, there was a point to all this.

"Okay. So talk." There was a hand on his again, and he didn't pull away anymore. It felt…sort of okay to have it there. Didn't feel like a girl's hand, but it wasn't bad.

"I don't know what to talk about."

"So what do you want to do?"

"I don't know. Not talk."

"Not talk ain't that simple, trustfund." He knew what Weevil meant. And suddenly, the idea didn't freak him out as much as it used to. And it wasn't a new idea. They'd been dancing around each other since…since they'd first noticed each other. Uncrowned kings of they separate groups, sometimes in open warfare, sometimes, like in Chardo's case or when they totaled Mr. Daniels' car, in tentative truce. And maybe, possibly, they understood each other a little bit. Even if it was only because of Lilly.

"I know." He nodded. "I can do complicated. Remember, I have class." He tried to cover his awkwardness with bravado, like always. And like always, Weevil saw right through it. Unlike always, though, he didn't call him up on it immediately.

"Trustfund, I seen your 'class'." He grinned. "You'll be fine." He sobered up, "But don't go chickening out on me in the middle, yeah?"

"I don't chicken out of anything." Even if it's something completely crazy, that he'd never thought about completely and hadn't the faintest clue how to begin doing. Weevil took that part out of his hands, metaphorically speaking, and into his own, quite literally. "But…I don't think I'm nearly drunk enough to be doing this." A weak smile, but all he could manage. Then he pulled a face, "On second thought, forget it. I don't want to see another drink as long as I live."

"Put on a really nice show back at the party."

"You saw that, huh? Yeah, well, everyone's entitled to one public scandal, right?"

"Yeah, and you've always been a greedy bitch, grabbing everybody else's scandals, too." Weevil's smiling again, but it's not a nasty smile. It's, again, kind of nice. "What happened?"

"I got drunk. I made an idiot of myself. My step sister dumped me at home." He doesn't want to remember what happened afterwards.

"What happened afterwards?" And maybe, he thought, the damn spic was a mindreader.

"Nothing."

"Logan."

He blinked. The fuck? Weevil had just called him 'Logan'? Too weird. "My dad got angry." He said in monotone, trying to get past it as quickly as he could. "He-"

"I know what he did." Weevil stopped him quietly. "You really thought you rich boys was the only ones getting slapped around at home?" He snorted. "Suspected for a while, but today…I know what he did."

"I hit him back." Logan admitted quietly. That was the big one. The difference. The reason he could talk and the reason he couldn't go home. "He hit me, and I fucking hit him back. Because my mom's gone, and she can't stop him. But she can't stop me, either, and I'm the one that needs it now. He hit me and I hit him back, and he hit me harder." Because Aaron Echolls was a tall man, and all that muscling up he did for movies made it real easy to grab his son and squash him flat. "So I hit him again. And then I went out. And I'm not going back there."

"Good for you." Weevil nodded. Logan's eyes shot up in surprise. "About fucking time, too."

"Yeah." Having someone agree that he was right made it better. "I'm glad I did it. I hope I broke his nose. I hope I messed up his pretty face. I could kill him. I want to." And there he was, angry again, after he'd only just managed to distract himself. And maybe a distraction was what he needed, because he concentrated on his anger, not on what Weevil was doing with him, to him.

It was simple, really, in retrospect. Like jerking off, only you weren't doing it to yourself. It felt weird, at first, touching another guy's dick. Not something he'd done since, maybe seventh grade when they were still into comparing sizes, but it felt sort of the same as his own. Except the color was wrong, and the shape, a little, and the hand pumping his was also the wrong color, bigger and warmer and alien. But it felt good, all of it, being close, and touching. They didn't kiss. He didn't want to, and Weevil didn't press. And when they'd both finished, sticky pools of white all over the covers, both of them slightly sweaty and panting, He didn't know where to hide himself. It was wrong for it to feel this good. He curled into himself, pulling his shirt down, couldn't find his voice.

"It's okay." Weevil smiled wide. "That was good. As 'not-talking' goes, that was good. You okay?"

"Y-yeah. I- I think I'm okay." Was he okay? Maybe. He wasn't any worse. And he felt strangely better, if freaked out. "Wait…that's it?" After all that worrying and prep work? A hand-job? How…oddly disappointing. And freaky as hell. And Weevil had the balls to laugh at him. Well, he sure had the balls, anyway.

"Yeah, trustfund, that's it. Why, you want more?" He waggled his eyebrows and Logan's hand shot out automatically towards his face. He dodged, still laughing. "Fuck off, man, that was the , whatcha call it, entrée? First course. Just a taste, to see if you liked it. I don't see you running out of here screamin', so I assume you did?"

"Um. Yeah. I think. It wasn't…bad." It was pretty good. But still weird. "I-" He hated admitting it, but it was better than freaking out in the middle of whatever, "I don't think I wanna…move on to the main course today. But maybe…" Deep breath, Logan, you can have a panic attack later, "Later." His tongue darted out to lick bone-dry lips. "Some other day?"

"No prob." Weevil nodded. "Didn't really think you'd go for the whole run the first time. That was your first time, right?"

"Hell yeah." Logan agreed, shaking his head. "Never thought it'd-" He looked up again, "I'm still not gay."

"That's ok." The same reply, "Neither am I."

"So this is…what, exactly?" Logan indicated the stains and the tissues littering Weevil's floor.

"Just friends." Weevil replied, giving him a you-know-what-I-mean smile, "Who talk. And sometimes, if they feel like it, they don't talk."

"Okay." That sounded acceptable. "I can do that. The talking. And the not talking." And he smiled, really, for about the first time since that Christmas dinner when it all came out. "I- should probably go now, shouldn't I?" Asking Weevil for pointers. Talk about slumming it.

"If you wanna. We can talk a bit more."

"Had enough of that for a week, thanks." And the thanks, surprisingly enough, was genuine, and Weevil knew that, too. "I'll go to Duncan's now. And- see you tomorrow?"

"Yup." Weevil grinned like a kid a Christmas. "And next time you wanna meet, just let me know."

"Sure." They faced each other awkwardly. How do you end a not-date with a not-girl? A goodbye kiss was totally out of the question. "And, like, if you want to talk, before I do, just tell me, okay? I'll…find time." To return the favor. And maybe practice a bit more at the not-talking thing. Finally, he held out his hand. "Um, shake on it?"

"Sure." The other boy nodded again, shaking his hand solemnly. The effect would've been solemn, at least, if neither hand had been as slightly sticky as it was, and they both burst into embarrassed laughter. "Go on, get outta here, I'll see you tomorrow."

"Ok. Weevil?" Logan hesitated before leaving, "You're not that bad."

"Gee, thanks." Weevil snorted. "You're not so bad yourself, trustfund. Through the street this time?"

"Yeah, yeah, through the fucking street. What are you, my m-" Logan stopped, swallowing hard. He hadn't even thought about her in nearly half an hour.

"I'm sorry." Weevil sounded sincere. "Really, I am. No one deserves that kinda shit."

"No, no one does."

It was a longish walk from the Hispanic side of town to the 09 zipcode area, but it gave Logan time to think, and get himself back into some semblance of control. It was good to have someone who understood, who saw through his mask. Nice that he didn't need to hide that much, sometimes. Nice to have someone he didn't need to talk with. It helped. It will help. He wasn't going to tell Duncan. Maybe he'd tell Lilly, next time he went to put orchids on her grave. She'd understand. Hell, she'd ask him to take pictures and leave them there too, under the flowers. Maybe, if things worked out ok, he'd do it one day.


End file.
